Melandru (GW2)  

Guild Wars 2 Wikibase™

The goddess of earth and nature, Melandru is the favored god of Rangers and earth Elementalists. It is said the Maguuma druids at one time worshipped this deity, but there are none alive today who can confirm the truth of this rumor. Melandru is frequently depicted as a human female torso whose lower body is the trunk, branches, and roots of a living tree. Her statues attract weary travelers. Beneath her branches await plenty of fresh water and shelter from the elements.

Many Canthans, especially the suspicious Luxons and the warlike Kurzicks, believe that the goddess of earth and nature has abandoned the empire. They believe that not even Melandru could have withstood Shiro Tagachi's literally petrifying death cry. But Melandru's devoted followers — the Rangers, Earth Elementalists, and many cultist sects know that this is merely a misunderstanding of what the goddess truly represents. They know that the goddess endures within the crystalline shell of the once-thriving Canthan landscape. Melandru is frequently depicted in both Cantha and Tyria as a tall, winged dryad from the waist up. But whereas northerners see a creature whose lower half grows naturally into a living tree, Canthan artists usually describe a severe figure ensconced in an outcrop of Echovald quartz. Melandru's roadside temples offer shelter, food, and water to weary travelers even in Cantha, though such shrines are few, and separated by long stretches of lifeless stonescape

Rangers and Earth Elementalists leave offerings to Melandru, trusting to her guidance. Throughout Elona, roadside temples to the goddess offer shelter and water to weary travelers. Wandering Dervishes maintain many of these shrines. With her blessings, the ground can slow or snare enemies, wanderers can survive in the harshest wilderness, and masters of magic can shake the very foundations of the world.

Most statues of Melandru show her as a tall, winged dryad rising from a tree-shaped base. Many temples use magic to shape that shrine from a living tree; for example, Elonian sculptures often rise from the base of a mebayah or a rooted dreamflower. A Dervish assuming the Form of Melandru has an arboreal appearance, acting with the same resolve as a tree with roots deep in the earth.

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